Liquid metal is typically a material that has a wide variety of uses, but in the computing and technology arena, it is seen as limited as a way to quickly conduct heat away from high-temperature components.
Recently, a group of researchers from Tsinghua University in China has succeeded in developing a RAM memory module using liquid metal called FlexRAM. This memory is made of gallium metal which is then given an electric charge to load the binary value 1/0 into it, which is then injected into a stretchable biopolymer material called EcoFlex.
This project is still in the initial phase, and each module/FlexRAM comes with eight storage units that contain only one byte of data for each unit. In the meantime, it is also reported that each FlexRAM module has a life cycle of 3500 data read/write times, far from the millions of cycles commonly seen in more commonly used memory.
Because this FlexRAM memory is also a volatile memory, it is also only able to store this memory for 43,200 seconds or 12 hours.
Although it is still in the initial phase of development, the use of memory made of liquid metal is seen to be useful through various applications, including in robots, interface systems between machines and the brain and implanted electronic equipment for those interested in the concept of bio-hacking.
